The Land: Forging (Chaos Seeds Book 2) (34 page)

Three thoughts went through Richter’s mind:

Poking it with his dagger pretty much ruled out the third point, but that didn’t completely set his mind at ease. If there is one thing that everyone who has played a dungeon crawler
knew
, it was that if you start seeing random skeletons, something deadly was in the neighborhood. He examined the room more closely. The skeleton was
laying
right in front of him. The stairway leading up to the chest had five steps total. As he looked at the steps, a red glow developed in front of the first step. Soon two more spots glowed red on the top of the second and the fourth step. There was no red glow on top of the first step, so it looked safe, but if when Richter examined the position of the
skeleton
it had one foot on top of the first step. Richter was missing something.

He raised his wand and shone it in front of him. Just above the first step, a white glow appeared. It was strange seeing a white light when everything else was green from his
Night Vision
spell, but as long the wand warned him of danger, Richter wasn’t going to complain about the color scheme. A thin white line extended across the step like a laser.
Leaning
in, but staying well clear of the traps, Richter could see a small divot in the stone. Inset into that divot was a smaller version of the lightning crystals that lined the wall of the outer chamber. If it wasn’t glowing in the light of Richter’s wand, he never would have seen it.

Tricky, tricky, Richter thought. Anyone seeing the first trap would jump over it and try to either disable the second trap or jump over it as well to the third step. Richter kept scanning the steps with the wand. If the
booby-trappers were extremely crafty and devilish,
they would put another lightning crystal rightttt… there it was! Embedded in the wall to the left of the third step was another lightning crystal. It sent a white line across that length of the step too. Richter was sure the fifth step was trapped as well.

Okay, he thought. I found the traps they wanted me to find, and the traps they didn’t want me to find. Now where are the traps that kill me, because now I’m a cocky bastard? Not moving, he shone his light around and saw pale white lines crisscrossing the room. Some extended vertically, other horizontally and still more at random angles. Whoever had devised this cockamamie dungeon needed a good kick in the teeth! Richter was just glad that he had cast
Night Vision
and not
Far Light
. Who knew what he would have triggered if the ball of light had crossed one of the white beams. Maybe these crystals released an AoE spell and not just a straight bolt of lightning. The only good thing was that there didn’t seem to be any white lines on the ledge the chest was sitting on.

Richter slowly made his way to the right side of the chamber. He chose that direction because the density of white lines was less on that side. Once he got to the corner, he did a kick step that would have made Jackie Chan proud. Facing the corner, he jumped towards the wall on his left, kicked off with his left foot towards the other wall, landed his right foot on that wall, kicked off again and then used the last of his upward momentum to grab the lip of the ledge, pulling himself up.

He hunched down shining his wand from his new vantage, but thankfully still didn’t see any other illumination on the rocky shelf he was laying on. The ceiling was only four feet above his head so he crab walked forward with the wand held in front of him. When he got closer to the chest, he saw a white glow above the chest, set into the wall. It was a crystal that looked different from the others he had seen, and there was no white line or sheet extending from
it
though. Examining it triggered a prompt.

Activation crystal.

Steeling himself, Richter placed his hand on the crystal.

Would you like to deactivate defenses? Yes or No?

“Yes,” Richter shouted as he mentally indicated his decision on the prompt. The activation crystal flared once, but nothing else happened. When Richter swung his wand over the
room
though, all of the white lines had disappeared. He took a deep breath and released it. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized how tense he had been for the last hour until that moment. The red glows on the steps were still there, but they were easily avoided.

Now that the danger from the crystals was past, he cast
Far Light
several times. Then he got back to business. Richter stared at the chest for a solid five
minutes and checked it with his wand at least
three times. When no white lines or red glow
appeared,
though, he gingerly grabbed the front of the lid and pried it back. He smiled when it was fully open. It was time for his reward!

You have found: Bag of coins.

You have found: Magic bracelet.

You have found: Magic Book.

You have found: Magic Potion.

You have found: Iron dagger. Damage 4-6. Durability 8/10. Item class: Common. Quality: Poor. Weight 1.0 kg.

You have found: Studded leather gloves. Defense +4. Durability 14/14. Item class: Common. Quality: Average. Weight 1.2 kg.

You have found: Black Pearl

You have found: Topaz

Not at all bad, Richter thought with a smile. The simple gear was crap, but the contents of the chest should prove a good cash infusion for the village. Also, who knew how good the magic items would be? He emptied the
chest
and stared inside to make sure he couldn’t see any hidden compartments. He even ran his hands along the inside of
it,
but didn’t detect anything. He closed the chest once he had emptied it. Then he eased himself down off of the ledge, avoiding the steps
all together
. Richter had considered trying to pry the activation crystal out of the
wall,
but decided to leave well enough alone. He couldn’t take the chance that it would turn all of the lightning crystals back on.

The last thing he had to do before swimming back was to examine the skeleton. Most of the clothing had rotted away, but several items remained.

You have found: Ruby earring.

You have found: Magic High Steel Dagger. Damage 9-11 (Max damage 11-13). Durability 19/25. Item Class: Uncommon. Quality: Above Average. Weight: 0.5 kg.

You have found: Magic Steel Dagger. Damage 7-9 (Max damage 8-11). Durability 16/20. Item Class: Uncommon. Quality: Above Average. Weight: 0.6 kg.

You have found: Runic Studded Leather Chest Plate. Defense +9. Type: Light Armor. Durability 30/30. Item class: Rare. Quality: Superb. Weight: 4.2 kg

You have found: Signet Ring. Durability 100/100. Item class: Rare. Quality: Masterwork. Weight: 0.3 kg

You have found: Pouch.

You have found: Bag of Coins.

You have found: Magic Ring. Durability 15/15. Item class: Uncommon. Quality: Average. Weight: 0.1 kg

You have found: Magic Ring. Durability 18/18. Item class: Uncommon. Quality: Above Average. Weight: 0.1 kg

You have found: Magic Ring. Durability 25/27. Item class: Common. Quality: Above Average. Weight: 0.1 kg

You have found: Magic Belt.
Durability 35/35. Item class: Uncommon. Quality: Superb. Weight: 0.8 kg.

You have found: Diary. Durability 4/10. Item class: Common. Quality: Poor. Weight: 0.1 kg.

You have found: Small picture. Durability 6/7. Item class: Common. Quality: Above average. Weight: 0.1 kg.

It was a lot more than Richter was expecting. Who had this guy been? He obviously wasn’t just some average adventurer. The signet ring had a stylized K on top. It was made of
multiple precious metals and was heavier than it looked. The magic items he put to the side, Futen would identify them soon enough.

The diary was small like
one of those pocket bibles they sold at every gas station in the Midwest. It was bound with faded red leather and a white K was on the front cover matching the signet ring except for a small “S” that was in the corner of the large letter. No time to dive into that now, he thought.

The picture was only a finger length long. The frame was black metal and composed of three parts, a larger middle piece which the picture was set in and two smaller pieces that hinged like double doors, blocking the picture from view when closed. The picture was of a smiling young woman. It was clearly a treasured keepsake of the fallen adventurer. He placed it in his Bag. The bag of coins was full to bursting and not a small amount was gold. There were also three gold bars like the ones that Hafiz had given him. Each bar was worth one hundred gold coins!

As happy as Richter was to find the money, though, the other pouch was equally wonderful.

You have found: Lock picks
. Durability 25/25. Item class: Common. Quality: Superb. Weight: 0.01 kg.
x 30

You have found: Dart trap. Damage 3-5. Durability 10/10. Item class: Common. Quality: Average. Weight: 0.1 kg.
x 2

The leather armor had a white circle attached to the front. The disc was about four inches across and had a glyph carved into it. The glyph shone white in the wand’s light, and the quality of the armor was quite good, but otherwise it was unremarkable.

Richter gave the chamber a final once over, and then walked towards the waterfall. The cave extended farther to the side than the waterfall reached on the left. He was able to look out over the lake. He hailed the sprites who shouted and cheered once again. Shining his wand across the water, he didn’t see any sheets of white anymore. Just to be sure he cast
Ice Dagger
. The
one-foot
long ice projectile flew forward, past the first crystal and then second. No red lightning shot out to atomize it. Richter smiled and dove into the water.

He enjoyed the easy swim this time, and just made nice leisurely strokes. There was no way he could bring all of the loot with him during the swim, and
anyway,
it would have risked damaging the diary.
Instead,
he just piled the loot from the chest with what he found on the skeleton. He left it all on a dry spot well back from the waterfall. He would have to swim back with his Bag of Holding and load up. When he got back to the ledge, and Yoshi helped pull him out of the water.

“Was it worth it,” the sword adept asked.

“I think so,” Richter said. He explained what had happened from disarming the lightning crystals to finding the loot. He left out his second brush with
death. No reason to get people upset, he thought
. They all made camp on the ledge for the night. It made sense with the access to fresh water.

Richter pulled the sleep rolls from his Bag and then jumped back into the water. The swim back and forth didn’t take too long, and he stopped at the island to grab the bone handle, map and key.

When he was in the final stretch back, he noticed that on the far wall, one of the lightning crystals was set low near the water line. He knew it was a
bone head
idea, but he couldn’t help himself. He swam over and examined it. The crystal looked like a clear pyramid. It was set into a black circular bracket, which was in turn set into the wall. Being so close to the destructive device made him uneasy, but the potential reward was well worth it. Before he could
second guess
himself, he grabbed a rocky protrusion on the wall to anchor himself, and with his other hand drew his glass dagger.

“What are you doing,” Sion shouted.

“It’ll be fine,” Richter shouted back. Then he focused on the task at hand.

First, he tried wedging the blade into the space between the pyramid and the bracket. The tip of the knife couldn’t find purchase. It seemed that the bracket was set snuggly over the crystal like a
hilt
over a blade, and the pyramid continued on past what was visible from the outside. Next, he tried to fit the blade between the bracket and the wall. The entire rim was set
flush with the wall,
though, and he didn’t make any headway. That left only one choice. Hoping that the durability of the glass dagger was equal to the task, he started stabbing it into the junction between the wall and the bracket. After several strikes, the first chips of rock fell free.
Taking
that as a good sign, he kept at it. After ten minutes he had made a small hole in the wall that revealed an empty space. He wedged the knife into the hole widening it until a
portion of the blade could fit behind the bracket. Then, making sure he was braced well on the wall, he applied as much pressure as his 29 points of Strength allowed. His muscles strained and veins started to bulge in his neck. With a loud crunch, the pyramid came free of the wall.

The circular bracket fell away. It turned out to be nothing more than a rim of metal. The crystal was actually a double pyramid, the half that had been hidden in the wall, a mirror image of the portion that had been sticking out. Richter looked at the item in dismay. The crunch he had heard had apparently been made not just by the wall giving way, but also by his glass dagger piercing the pyramid. An irregular hole marred the surface of the crystal, destroying
it
symmetry. Gritting his teeth in irritation, Richter swam the rest of the way back to the ledge with the device held out of the water.